Subconscious

Alan Lomax, wandering somewhere in Arkansas. This photograph of Alan conjures up the audio vision I have of the legend. October, 1959 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Shirley Collins

Normally, it can take weeks (even months) preparing a story for this space. I need time in my attempts to share something imaginative, hopefully insightful — or dare I reach as an offering towards a sliver of enlightenment — in an era when everything and anything is brilliantly rehashed on the Internet.

This week I’ve decided to loose my laundry and dive as rapidly as I can into the Ring of Blogging Fire on a topic surely well written upon. What happened just under two weeks ago (though it’s been quietly going on for sometime) is indeed one of the biggest developments not only in the world of field recording history, it’s also a landmark moment for social documentary photography.

The Alan Lomax collection is now completely accessible online — 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, piles of manuscripts — including 5,000 photographs he took over this astonishing career.

Alan Lomax dreamed of being able to give back to those he recorded. With the advent of technology, today the Association for Cultural Equity — the institution he started — is reaching out to living family members, finding ways to generate royalties to the late artists and their families. Here Alan is having Raphael Hurtault listen to playback of his recordings in La Plaine, Dominica. Ironically, I was in La Plaine for a National Geographic story last year. Have a feeling little had changed since the 1960's. June 25, 1962 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Antoinette Marchand.

Oh, did I mention the best part…these thousands of hours of audio are not only accessible in their entirety (most of the Lomax collection has been available online for years but as 45 second intro pieces), they are streaming for FREE!

Even the film and photographic archive is accessible for searching and viewing, for free.

Clearly Alan Lomax is passionate, utterly oblivious that his fly is open and probably sweating like a pig in the summer heat on the island of Mallorca yet still the gentlemen donning a tie while testing microphone at the Palma Festival, Palma, Mallorca, Spain June 23, 1952 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Jeannette Bell

For those who do not know who Alan Lomax was, he was an American folklorist and one of the preeminent ethnomusicologists of our time. Born in Texas in 1915, Alan was the son of John Lomax, a teacher and pioneering folklorist in his own right. By age 17, Alan Lomax began traveling with his father throughout the American south and the Caribbean as his dad made what are considered some of the most important early recordings of American culture while working for the Library of Congress (John Lomax set out in 1933 on the first recording expedition ever undertaken by the Library of Congress with son Alan in tow). According to Don Fleming with the Association for Cultural Equity, Alan primarily traveled with a Ampex 601-2 audio tape recorder and two RCA 77-D microphones — would need a well padder steamer trunk for such a large but truly awesome quality kit. He also traveled with camera, taking photographs that matched his field recordings in places like Haiti, Dominican Republic, Scotland, England, Ireland, all over the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain. Here are some photographs of Alan Lomax throughout his 60 years of literally recording our world ~

Wade Ward, old-time music banjo player and fiddler from Virginia, clearly enjoying the playback Alan Lomax had just made. Take a look at the size of this Ampex 601-2 audio tape recorder kit…and we complain that a Fostex or a Sound Devices is big! Galax, Virginia. August 31, 1959 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Shirley Collins.

I love this period-based photograph. Why? Look around the room and tell me what you see; Alan Lomax traveled/worked no different than we do today...living hotel to hotel in hot, tropical climates. Instead of a MacBook Pro, he used a portable typewriter. Jeez, remember TWA? Alan Lomax reading notes in Radix Village, Trinidad. May 20, 1962 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Antoinette Marchand

Seems Alan Lomax also used a Canon camera, seen here at the Delta Blues Festival, Greenville, Mississippi. September 8, 1979 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Bill Ferris.

When you go to the Cultural Equity website and stream Alan Lomax's recordings, you'll be amazed by how much sound he picked up with these truly tinny microphones. In this photograph, Alan is using a Midgetape which weighed 3 pounds. I bet Alan would be blown away by how compact audio recording kits are these days. Here Alan is recording the Pratcher brothers — Miles on guitar, Bob on fiddle — in Como, Mississippi. September 21, 1959 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Shirley Collins

Alan Lomax inspecting film in Albarracín, Aragón, Spain. 400,000 feet of film and 3,000 videotapes make up the moving film archive of the Alan Lomax collection, which is now completely available online. October 15, 1952 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Jeannette Bell.

When the Association for Cultural Equity, a not-for profit Mr. Lomax started, announced that the entire Alan Lomax Collection would be available for streaming, I was beyond thrilled. In my World Music collection I have two or three treasured CD’s of his which are as pure and raw as it gets.

During the last 20 years of his life, Lomax created an interactive multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox. This recent ability for the entire collection to be accessible to everyone is indeed a dream come true for Alan, who died at the age of 87 in 2002 — he wanted his messages of change, inspiration and education to be available for all.

This is huge on many levels.

Why?

Lomax wasn’t only the preeminent and pioneering ethnomusicologist and field recordist of our time, he was social documentarian who used both audio and photography to educate and raise awareness of issues. In many ways, he was a fellow photojournalist.

Take a gander as some of these rare contacts which a young Alan, about 18 years of age, took while he and his father worked for the Library of Congress ~

Some lovely portraits seen on this rare contact sheet during his years when he traveled with his father, John Lomax, while working for the Library of Congress. Contact. He seemed to already have a keen eye for composition at the age of around 19 when these photographs were taken. The musicians are portraits of Stavin' Chain and Wayne Perry performing in Lafayette, LA, June 1935 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photographs by Alan Lomax

More insight into how Alan Lomax worked behind the camera when not making audio recordings. This contact sheet shows portraits of of musicians Bill Tatnall and Susie Herring — Frederica, Georgia, June 1935 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photographs by Alan Lomax

His microphones and cameras traveled the world during an era when musical traditions were already under pressure due to development and cultural apathy. Lomax knew the importance of creating audio recordings and photographs as a means to make change and raise awareness, well before a drop of notion that a tool called the Internet would arrive, let along recording device that would fit into a shirt pocket. Lomax knew that the musical and cultural traditions which took all of human civilization to develop was under pressure and about to becoming extinct, in the same manner of urgency that the present day preservation of linguistic heritage is sending anthropologists (sadly with scarce funding) to record the last speakers of dying languages on our planet — every two weeks a last speaker dies, taking with them the vestiges of our global language which not only makes up our global cultural heritage, we lose the wisdom of our ancestors.

Alan clearly understood magazine gutters yet was not a magazine photographer, placing the bamboo support smack in the middle with all sorts of lovely moments happening on the right and left. The white hands on the rear wall and the silhouette of the veiled women tops this image for me which was taken during a Hindu wedding ceremony in Charlo Village, Trinidad. May 12, 1962 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Lomax was also a social activist, focusing heavily on civil rights issues, once again using music/field recordings and photography as a compendium against social injustice and raising cultural awareness. He was a co-founding member of People’s Songs, with Pete Seeger and others in 1945, with the belief that folk music could be an effective impetus for social change. His recordings from America’s southern states in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s were key in raising awareness and helping to end racial discrimination while Lomax championed civil rights issues for African Americans.

When Alan Lomax was 17, he began traveling with his father, pioneering folklorist and author John Lomax, taking photographs and helping is dad with his audio recordings. Some of his early work with his father was at prison camps. Here is a photograph of a prisoner inside the camp hospital taken when Lomax was around 19 year-old — Darrington State Farm, Texas, April 1934 ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Full frame — cropping in camera — clearly was how Alan Lomax saw the world. Unfortunately the cover image of the recordings, Prison Songs (next image) ended up being cropped. Tragic the art team removed the ax in the upper right of this photograph of prisoners chopping wood in order to make it a square album/CD format. Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary), Parchman, Mississippi. September 16, 1959 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Final photograph by Alan Lomax as it appeared on the Prison Songs recordings. Seems the design team had a significant hand in making this work as a square, even go as far as using Photoshop to remove all background detail and getting a bit overly creative by adding clouds in the top right.

Alan Lomax used the power of images and the awesome power of sound not just to record history, he used these communication tools to make a difference.

This is one of my favorite Lomax quotes:

“The dimension of cultural equity needs to be added to the humane continuum of liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and social justice.”—Alan Lomax, 1972

I can type effortlessly for hours on how important Alan Lomax was to the preservation of culture and the weighted issues on a whole host of human rights efforts and activism he was connected to. Given the wealth of the Lomax collection now accessible to all — and the countless books, news articles and whatnot written/recorded about Mr. Lomax — you can easily learn more about this extremely talented and passionate individual yourself by making a simply Google search (click here). Anyone wanting to really delve deep into Lomax’s career and life, make sure to read the book, Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World.

My reason for rapidly writing this piece — and what’s often overlooked in all the writings, reviews and ravings about Alan Lomax — is his eye.

Alan Lomax was a pretty darn good photographer.

Alan Lomax could see, working the entire frame of the images in this scene while recording workers clearing land in The Valley, North Side, Anguilla. July 4, 1962 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Portrait of two women seated in front of their home, singing and shaking rattles during a visit to Andros Island in the Bahamas. This was taken when Alan was 20 in 1935 when he traveled to the Bahamas with anthropologist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle ~ Courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Young boy, crying — Unknown Location, between 1933 and 1935 ~ Image courtesy of the Library of Congress ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Beautifully composed baptism near Mineola, Texas. Alan would have been only around 19 or 20 years-old when this photograph was taken in the summer of 1935 ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Once again Alan Lomax finds his composition, using the entire frame, pushing the camera button right when a young newspaper boy appears in the frame, whistling. Festa brass band in Cinquefrondi, Calabria, Italy. August 1, 1954 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax clearly knew what he wanted to see in his photographs, here keeping in the row of elegantly hanging hats in the frame while the Rev. I.D. Back sings during recordings with the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church congregation, Blackey, Kentucky. September 5, 1959 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

Simple yet poetic portrait of Harry Cox with unidentified woman and child at his home in Norfolk, East Anglia, England. Cox was a farmworker and one of the most important singers of traditional English music of the twentieth century. October 9, 1953 ~ Courtesy the Association for Cultural Equity ~ Photograph by Alan Lomax

I hope these few photographs — and Alan Lomax’s entire archive — inspires you as much as it has me for continuing to use our cameras to make social change for those who cannot themselves, while in compendium, make field recordings, helping to expand the minds and hearts of others through the consciousness arresting power of sound and sight.

These days we tend to call it multimedia.

Fine, though I prefer to call it Visual Audio.

Either way, well before anyone of us were creating such combination storytelling, Alan Lomax was…and most of us weren’t even born yet.

NOTE: An enormous level of gratitude goes to Nathan Salsburg and Don Fleming — both with the Association for Cultural Equity — for allowing me to used un-watermarked photographs taken by Alan Lomax over his amazing career. Nathan had the weighted task of gathering 20+ high res files and helping me source proper captions. A super group of people continue the legacy of Alan Lomax, all of whom I’d be honored to meet on my next visit to New York City.

Musicians and photographers are a strange yet similar lot.

Passing the time on the bow viagra a small boat crossing the Malacca Straits while working on the National Geographic story, Malacca Pirates. Knew this assignment would involve loads of boat travel, making the wooden friend an excellent companion. Photograph Courtesy of Yudhistira Dharama (aka, JP)

Instruments

Balafon, cello, guitar, marimba, sitar, trumpet, voice…

DSLR, Holga, iPhone, pinhole camera, rangefinder, 6×6, view camera…

Genres

Chant, classical, folk, jazz, punk, rock, ska…

Advertising, architecture, art, fashion, paparazzi, photojournalism, sports…

Evolution

After years of jamming in shit-hole bars, playing bland Bar Mitzvah’s or waiting tables, sometimes a musician gets a break, records a few meaningful albums then hits the road, sharing their music and message, performing night after night at their apex because people have paid good money to hear what touches their soul.

After toiling as an intern, self-funding projects by nearly living off of food stamps or working a few dull part-time jobs just to make ends meet, sometimes the photographer gets a break, does a number of short but meaningful assignments, then hits the road on longer projects, performing at their apex day after day because you’ve been hired to deliver nothing less.

The two professions are linked inextricably by the act of performing. Not as a rockstar — that only feeds an ego — but for the art and purpose of communication.

Activism

Photojournalist share another common thread with musicians, that of activism, helping bit by bit to turn the wheel of change.

We preform the roll of observer for others who cannot witness the event themselves. Images are the link which helps bind us collectively — a starving person in one part of the world is no different then a hungry neighbor up the road, yet if either plight is not witnessed, who would know to help? If no one documented the atrocities of war, how could those who perpetrate war crimes ever truly be held accountable? Were it not for those who often turn down more lucrative forms of photography, would important in-depth reportage on issues from the Congo or the foreclosure disaster in the United States ever become ink on paper or pixels on an iPad?

Having no witness begets the evils and weaknesses of humanity.

Had Paul Simon not produce the album, Graceland, how many more in our general population (especially outside of the continent) would have not known the oppression in South Africa, or would Stephen Biko have become a near globally recognized name for the enormous sacrifice he made where it not for Peter Gabriel’s 1980′s song, Biko, and his unflinching commitment to help end apartheid? Would the environmental movement not be were it is today without folk singer Pete Seeger? Would the plight for those in need in Bangladesh during the early 70′s not been raised to it’s global awareness without the efforts of George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, or would the world have banded together magically on it’s own had Bob Geldof not ran himself ragged to pull off Live Aid in the 1985?

Both the musician and photographer exert passionately for hours on end. It is not work. It’s an obsession. A purpose. The notion of calling it work is as absurd as saying breathing or urinating is laborious.

History

Photographs and music have another definitive connection; They are benchmarks of time and history. When viewing the shocking Kent State massacre photograph, I become enraged, hearing songs such as Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Birds. Images from the Vietnam War, Joan Baez’s album Where Are you Now, My Son fills the head and Edwin Starr screams his anti-war anthem, WAR.

After years of being on the road, a pattern began to form — just as the music which played on the radio when I was a teenager become that years soundtrack of summer, the music heard while on the road forever becomes the soundtrack of that assignment. An audible link. A metaphor. A reference to time. Suddenly an album or song takes on new meaning, sometimes comical, other times weighted.

China

For instance…traveling in 1999 to the brothel-ridden southern border town of Ruili, China, for a Time Magazine story on border towns, translator and friend, Casper (yes, she choose her English name after the Friendly Ghost), commandeered the China Southern Airlines music player, tricking the stewardess that the cassette she had in hand was music everyone onboard would love. We jammed at 35,000 feet listening to the Doors blasting through the isle. Jim Morrison also accompanied us throughout the long car drives to the Burma border in Yunnan Province. Every time I think of Ruili or see the following photograph, I hear The Doors.

The last remaining traditional masseuse in the town of Ruili, China. Learned on this story never say you'll never revisit a place, returning a total of three times to this depressing town located along the Burma border. Young girls from throughout China and Burma are trafficked to this small village which, at least between 1999 and 2003, was basically one massive brothel. Oh, that last masseuse...he was gone a year after taking this photograph in 1999, replaced by another karaoke bar.

Vast amounts of heroin moves across the Burma/China border in Ruili, making it one of the most drug saturated cities in China. It's also the route of the B strain of HIV which then migrates north via truck drivers.

Indonesia

Driving through Central Java with my dearest of friends, Heri Yanto (Heri tragically passed away last year), we stumbled upon a cassette sold at a small warong (shop), that became our soundtrack to the National Geographic story, Volcano Gods. Since ancient Javanese spirituality and Ponorogan culture have connectable roots to Mount Merapi, it seemed mystically fitting that Music from Ponorogo would forever be heard every time I gander a photograph from that story, with it’s hypnotic suling (Javanese flute) and trance-like percussion.

Gunung (Mount) Merapi, erupting on May 15, 2006, in Central Java. Merapi is consider among Javanese spiritualist to be mystical and sacred. And thank you, Ed Wray, for letting me use your 300mm lens for this photograph. 50mm is normally the longest lens I tot around and Ed, one of the kindest photographers I know — and an extremely talented photographer — was generous to lend me his lens for a few frame, one of which became the cover image for this story. On a side note, being so engrossed with the various layers of spirituality while working on Volcano Gods, my wife and I named our daughter, Francesca Merapi Stanmeyer.

Reok Ponorogo culture has been around for centuries. Here a member of the group, donning elaborate makeup and a fake beard, waits to perform in the Jatilan, a sacred dance held in May 2006 in hopes to calm the restless ogre believed to reside in Mount Merapi.

Ancient Javanese ceremony where rice offerings (tumpengs) are carried to a river flowing from Merapi. The offering were intended to try and protect a village located 2 kilometers from the erupting volcano.

My dear friend, Heri Yanto, during our three-day visit to Mount Bromo in East Java. Heri and I worked together throughout Indonesia and parts of Malaysia for over 10 year. He passed away last year from diabetes, an illness he never told me had.

Pakistan

And for some odd reason while covering the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, James Taylor’s album, October Road, became the soundtrack while moving through some of the most precarious roads ever traveled with my friend Raza Khan (Raza also tragically passed away a few years back). Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most amazing qawali singer ever, shared speaker time, however somehow October Road united with the harsh yet staggering landscape. Think it had to do with witnessing so much loss and suffering, finding hope and love in the track, September Grass.

Evening prayers amidst the ruined mosque in Balakot, Pakistan, after an major earthquake hit Kashmir on October 8, 2005. The entire region was leveled. Truly depressing what happens when the earth shakes.

With the bridge over the Pattika River hanging only by a few remaining cables, it didn't stop the needs of the people who survived the earthquake.

Praying over freshly made graves in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, one day after a massive earthquake rocked the Kashmiri region.

Raza Khan waiting for me to get a hair cut amongst the destroyed remains of a barber shop in Balakot, Pakistan. Raza and I worked together for nearly 10 years. In hostel regions such as along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, he swore to protect me, no matter what, often saying emphatically "I will die for you, Brother John!" Raza didn't have to die for me. He tragically died in a auto accident while driving my colleagues Lynsey Addario and Teru Kuwayama back to Islamabad from an assignment they were working on in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Fortunately Lynsey and Teru survived. I miss Brother Raza dearly.

Choices

While packing just over two weeks ago — at the very last minute, of course — for an assignment in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the need for choosing the right soundtrack was paramount…it would require driving throughout much of Washington State, the Oregon coast and possibly Northern California.

In many ways, the decision was more weighted then the gear that still needed packing: underwater camera housing, special tripod clamps, oddball cables, gaffers tape, camping gear, mozzie net, etc.

In fact organizing the camera bits are simple.

It’s the choice of music which often takes the weight of thought and time.

Music — and far more kit then normally is brought on an assignment — selected for last weeks National Geographic assignment in the Pacific Northwest.

Rummaging through the music library, slowly and methodically, the audio narrative took shape. Here is what Part I of the assignments musical accompaniment sounded like:

Peter Gabriel – US

Neil Young – Harvest

Tchaikovsky – Symphony #6

Pigmy Chants of Central Africa – Hunting, Love and Mockery Songs

Musicians of the Nile – Luxor to Isna

Taking Heads – Stop Making Sense

Japanese Shakuhachi – Japanese flute music

Sundanese – Batawi

Frank Sinatra – Greatest Hits

U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind

Górecki – Miserere

Sundanese – Classical Music

Dave Matthews Band – Live in Central Park

The CD player of the Chevy Traverse become the epicenter of musical timekeeping, naturally heralding, in it’s own time, an album that would become the soundtrack for part one of this latest National Geographic story.

Jabbering incessantly on geology, devising our own audible manual to assemble rather complex foldable Folbot kayaks and the recounting of past peculiar events, forester Dave and I were only able to enjoy around 70 percent of the audio enlightenment; Japanese Shakuhachi, U2, Sundanese, Talking Heads, Pigmy Chants of Central Africa, Neil Young, Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon, each selected by Dave and played in that order over long drives through some rather stunning Pacific Northwestern landscape. A week ago we were still on the road at 1:30 am with the only place open for dinner being a 7-11 for hot dogs and chips — U2 and a cup of weak joe kept me awake for another hour, barely. Damn, sure live high on the hog while on NG assignments, don’t we.

Dave Yamaguchi enjoying dinner consisting of water, a hot dog and chips, at the pumps of a 7-11 somewhere on the outskirts of Olympia, Washington.

Ritual

Allowing the music to decide what will forever be indelibly referenced as the soundtrack to the 1,400+ miles of driving, a near regular ritual begins, preformed after every story, arising most specifically while flying home, this time lost in clouds hovering over the Cascade Mountains — reflecting on what has been photographed and what lies ahead.

Somewhere over the Rocky Mountains on Southwest flight #210 from Seattle to Chicago.

The most invocation-filled moments — along with non-photography bits, like this blog entering completion — tends to happen on planes. Though the carbon footprint is obscene (sadly, it’s impractical to walk from the farm in New England westward to Seattle, Washington…Louis and Clark took over a year back in 1804-05 just from Ohio to Oregon), there’s a certain sense of peace found in planes.

Sick, right.

Maybe it’s because there’s nowhere to go. Maybe it’s the hum of the engines playing on the consciousness with its monotoned drone. Maybe it’s the lack of distractions. Really haven’t a clue. But I’m truly balanced and at peace while being in the belly of a bird…and giddy as a school boy in lederhosens during each take off and landing with the bizarre notion of being encased in what basically is a 10-story building, turned on its side, with two flat sticks on either side.

Oh yeah, and it flies.

Epilogue

One thing is for certain…I don’t sense this story — which had significant hurdles to overcome during the last two weeks — will change the world. Unfortunately it’s not going to end hunger nor put a halt to wars. However the purpose of this story, like so many others we all do, is to help us think. Think about our future related to events which can happen to many of us, in turn hopefully saving lives.

A bit of a tall order indeed. One at the very least should be tried, helping, if possible, to turn the cog just ever so slightly further, awaiting the next hand to turn the wheel of change.

PS: Least I forget; Thank you, Kōhachiro Miyata, for fusing your fluid style of shakuhachi with the State of Washington while driving at dusk along Route 8 towards the coast. And to Frank, The Chairman of the Board, dripping your velvet voice while driving under moonlight along the Pacific Coast Highway (Rt. 101) in Oregon, embossing soundtracks to the White Horse along the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Spring arrived a bit late this year in the Berkshires. Haven’t lived here long enough to gauge whether such a delay is connection to global weather changes or if belated seasonal change is simply natural in western Massachusetts.

Either way, while dumping buckets of aged horse shit into the fields recently behind the barn, it caused to ponder about farmers I’ve had the honor to meet and photograph over the years.

Farmer John, dropping buckets of manure in the fields next to the studio, located in barn on Dancing Fields Organic Farm. Photograph by Richard Stanmeyer

It also reminded to get this years crop in the ground soonest or else loose more time trying to feed this beast called a blog — albeit an enjoyable beast to wrestle on a near weekly basis.

I’ve spend much time with famers across this amazing spinning ball we all call home, however some farmers really stood out, leaving an impression residing deep each time I eat a meal.

Living literally in the middle of a ricefield for five years in Bali, nearly all my neighbors were farmers. Each morning, next door neighbor, Bapak Made, would head out to plant, inspect, harvest or just enjoy a romp through his fields.

My neighbor, Bapak Made, heading through the terraces to his ricefield located behind our old home in Bali.

On one occasion for the book, Island of the Spirits, I wandered through the terraces with Bapak Made to attend a ceremony at a small temple in his field called a Pura Ulun Siwi, erected and placed in its specific location for one equally specific reason — for giving thanks towards a bountiful harvest and giving respect to the god of earth.

Bapak Made preparing to pray as be decorates his Pura Ulun Siwi or water temple in his ricefield.

Such moments always gave cause to rethink how fragile we are regarding the ability to feed ourselves, especially in a time when many young children in cities haven’t a clue what a tomato is or that french fries are actually potatoes.

Take a moment and watch this except of chef Jamie Oliver as he asks a classroom of 1st grade students what the name is of red veggies he was holding:

Alarming, isn’t it.

I met Jason Hinson while working on the End of Plenty story for National Geographic. He’s one of those fellas you immediately connect with. A true salt of the earth type. Felt as if I’d known him my whole life yet at the time had simply wandered over to his John Deere combine and asked if I could ride with him while he harvested thousands of ears of corn. For the record, Jason’s Deere could eat my 3320 Deere like an olive.

He was working the fields in Kingston, Iowa.

Jason Hinson, a fourth generation farmer, drives his combine as he harvests over 100 acres of corn.

Working insanely long hours, Jason Hinson with his amazingly massive combine harvesting corn. That Deere can move.

Jason was kind enough to let this giddy wannabe farmer pilot his mammoth Deere. It was astonishingly simple to drive with control and speed like a Mercedes Benz. No wonder these machines cost more than an average house.

This wannabe farmer, harvesting corn with Hinson's combine which felt more like piloting a spaceship deftly through a Milkyway of ears. Photograph by Jason Hinson

Life as a farmer anywhere on earth is never unchallenging. It had been a difficult year in 2008 for Midwestern farmers. Many had lost their crop when the Mississippi River overflowed it’s banks due to unusually heavy rains further north.

All this area of Oakville, Iowa, tens of thousands of acres of corn and wheat grew until a levy broke, sending the Mighty Mississippi River across farmland and ruing lives. 1.3 million acres of grain was lost, sending feed and food prices across the globe through the roof. It also didn't help that a surge in biofuels was also taking place about the same time — when food is used as fuel, the effect on prices can be staggering.

This use to be the road leading to their house and farm, but in 2008, Brian, Cindy and Colt Wiegand had to use a boat while surveying the damage to their crops, barn and home.

Seems farmers in America are equally affected by climate change as they are in Bangladesh or the plains of northern Kenya where the exact opposite plays out but with deadly consequences.

Drought.

Low crop yields in developing nations are a primary cause of world hunger, and low crop yields are connected to severe weather pattern change taking effect across the planet, especially in the Horn of Africa.

Dust storm caused by severe drought in 2008 hits Mabaalea village, a remote Afari encampment located in Teru district in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia.

When camels die from thirst and lack of food, one can only imagine the effects on the human population.

I met Momina Mohammed, 34, while she was trying to nurse her 8 month old son, Ali Mohammed. He was suffering from severely acute malnourished in an Eritrean refugee camp in Suola near the Eritrean border in northeastern Ethiopia. Momina hadn't been able to eat properly for months, causing her breast milk to stop. It didn't help that she too was malnourished, unable to afford the global rising costs of food. Before heading back to Addis Ababa, I wandered all over a nearby market hoping to find baby formula. Amazingly, I found two tins. Momina was very pleased but unfortunately I have no idea about the fate of Ali once leaving.

Spending a few days with Jason and his friend, Chad Kuntz, was a reminder of how dependent our entire food supply is to so few who actually still work the land.

In the United States, less than 1% of the population are farmers.

Farmer Chad Kuntz with one of his three daughters while harvesting corn in Oakville, Iowa.

Not that long ago, we were all farmers. Few complained about the long hours and hard work. Such labor had it’s rewards — survival.

These days we naturally want more.

For the last few decades — along with the foreseeable future to come —  our entire existence relies on the hardworking hands of Jason, Made, Chad and a dwindling number of others who understand the brilliance of planting a seed, reaping the benefits of something we often can take for granted.

I recognize that not everyone can be a farmer. It’s physically impossible as well as impractical. Even for our family, less than one acre of organic vegitables and 30 hens for organic eggs is a labor, though fortunately a labor of love.

Francesca, 3, with a new baby chick bring the Stanmeyer brew to over 30 on the farm in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. By the way, the eggs are astonishing from these lovely ladies. Just ask my friend and VII colleague, Franco Pagetti, who cooks an amazing Pagetti-style omelet whenever he visits. May, 2011

One difficulty we’re facing is not the lack of open land in say, New York City, to grow food for the entire population of the greatest city on earth. The problem…where there is land to grow, so few in developed nations are willing to work it.

While driving around Mississippi two weeks ago,  I was listening to a story on NPR about foreign workers. A Georgia farmer could not find locals in his town who would be willing to work the harvest season. Even at $200 per day (or around $25 per hour, three times more than working at a fast food joint), the only ones willing to work were migrants who are desperate for a job in order to feed their own families back home. Astonishing yet understandable when Xbox’es and 300+ television channels are so conveniently gobbling up our time and minds.

An even greater obstacle to overcome in order to be able to feed the human population; Changing how we use of land which is already being farmed.

Too much is now being diverted to biofuels, taking good soil and land away from our bellies and into the tanks of our automobiles.

Steam belches out from a furnace while trucks carrying corn for processing into ethanol arrive and trains wait to leave with liquid ethanol from the POET Biorefining plant in Gowrie, Iowa.

The Amazon Rainforest is being clearcut to make way for even more farmland in order to grow soybeans for the global rising demand in meat.

Deforestation in the upper Mato Grosso state of the Amazon west of Juara city where farmers are burning ancient rainforests to make way for more farmland to raise cattle and soybeans.

None of this tractor-pondering is revolutionary. Nor is there just one single factor related to significant problems we’re facing.

However it is monumental when you consider that the present way we use our arable land is simply not going to yield enough food unless we radically change the way we work the land, getting more engaged in regards to how our food is grown and ease up on food waste — one-third or 1.3 billion tons of food goes wasted each year.

In a few weeks time our population will reach 7 billion.

By 2050, 9 billion.

How will we feed ourselves?

Having feed The Beast, next to feed the chickens and water the garden in hopes to feed the family with a simple but needed harvest in the months to come.

NOTE: To read some fascinating insight about our food supply, the environment and a host of other related illumination, read Dennis Dimick’s blog, Signs from Earth.

No idea what inspired the coconut on the head. Nassau, 1975

In Dr. Souvakis’s waiting room hung a phrase on a pale wall, its washed out blue paint showing evidence of having been applied with a cheap brush. In hand stroked yellow script were the words:

Life is short
The art long
The moment instant

Can’t say it was enjoyable visiting his office, located in an old British colonial style two-story walkup. But like any child mildly delirious with the flu, this ever present sign hanging next to his office door was hypnotizing, making the muggy room without Highlight Magazines less troublesome while trying to unravel it’s meaning, well before the one-click instant answer of the Internet.

It took a number of years before discovering the phrase, smashing about the internal dialogue, was actually a quote from Hypocrites, considered the Father of Medicine. This mantra either sidestepped its purpose or screwed me up forever, meandering upon timelessness and brevity. Sensory and possibility.

This phrase oddly tapped a profound interest in both seeing and listening, which to this day befuddles how a kid with big ears and a perpetual bad hair day could connect such sensory to the brevity and wonderment of life from the only hanging object on the good doctor’s wall.

As profoundly misconstrued the mind likely was to such wisdom, at an early age there somehow became known what today never ceases to astonish…

Images create sounds in the mind. Sounds creates images in the mind. Both are wonderful individually. Together they can be profound.

Sounds of Deep Trance and Prayers in a cave on Nusa Penida Island, Bali

[wpaudio url="http://72.32.9.12/~jstanmeyer/blog/audio/free-audio/Nusa Peneda Cave Trance.mp3" text="Prayer & Trance" dl="0"]
(iPhone and iPad)

At the time both felt like the meaning of life yet I was truly too much a child to understand it’s impact.

Like many Greeks in the 1950s and ’60s, Dr. Souvakis immigrated to Nassau for a better life. The Bahamas was, in the early 1970s, still a magical place. Bay Street had intriguingly seedy bars where posters hung at the entrance of local musicians donning fantastic costumes and instruments. The Straw Market had not yet been transformed into a Florida-inspired strip mall, and the true colors of Bahamian life and culture were still saturated yellows, deliciously inky blacks and the deep turquoise of this yet-to-be-independent nation’s flag — not the watered-down pastels of present-day marketed Bahamas, which mirrors that of a Key West trinket shop, which mirrors a myriad of a tropical-themed restaurant across America, which mirrors that of a pavilion’s design in a theme park I once visited in Southern China.

To a 9 year-old boy from Chicago, there existed legends and magic.

Prayers at dawn along the Ganges

[wpaudio url="http://72.32.9.12/~jstanmeyer/blog/audio/free-audio/Vishnu Morning Prayers-India.mp3" text="Prayers to Vishnu" dl="0"]
(iPhone and iPad)

Over three decades later, I still question if I truly understand the weight and measure of Hypocrites’s words, preferring the fanciful notion of a young Midwestern boy’s imagination to that of such weighty symbolism.

It is for this reason – and surely more – that today begins a blog about what inspires the natural human desire of wonderment and purpose within myself and surely all of us.

What lies over that mountain?

Can we actually make monumental change and if so, how?

What is the rhythm which links us collectively?

Why is everything so utterly fascinating, even in its most mundane or unseen, and so profoundly heard and felt?

Few definitive answers will come of this, as there are many, yet there are none. Just as there are no meaningful nor quantitative answers to a question, I’m all too often asked by young photographers…

“How do I take a good picture?”

I haven’t fucking a clue.

But I do know we have to understand what our purpose is while viewing the world through the perspective of a camera. While doing so, being amazed at everything, by everything. Questioning everything we see, sensing every vibration of sound. Listening to our internal consciousness colliding by the astonishing realities before us, in turn learning, then sharing that weight and measure with others.

The real question to ask is not necessarily “How do I take a good picture?”

The question might be to ask:

“How do I stop to listen, in order to see what’s happening right before me?”

(I am fully open to turning this blog into a forum for each and every discussion. Just please don’t turn this into technical chatter. I’m the anti-tech. I haven’t a clue what a megapixel is. No interest in why a sensor within one camera is more brilliant than another. I love film grain but am far more interested in the weight and measure of the recorded moment. Don’t give a damn about what compression is better for audio so long as it blows me away. I find it far more fascinating to share what we can do with these tools towards creating monumental change and enlightenment than wording printed on the camera strap.)